How Layering COULD end up destroying the classic experience from the start

[tikcol]

No, it's not "entitlement". See, they are paying to play the game. Therefore they want the ability to play and Blizzard is listening to them.

You, on the other hand, have the ability to pay and not play by simply not logging in. So the only "entitlement" here is what you are projecting by trying to force others into playing on unstable servers. Fortunately Blizzard is ignoring people like you and choosing stability.

Private servers have stable servers with 20k people online at any given time and I never paid anything. Your argument is lazy and completely non sensical lol

[MoanaLisa]

So why are they only using it for classic?

Because it's new and they don't need it for the current game. If all goes well, they will likely use it for the next expansion.

[Annelie]

Because it's new and they don't need it for the current game. If all goes well, they will likely use it for the next expansion.

It is not new, it is a rename of a thing the playerbase hates. If they use the realm name people would be angry.

[Protocoaxke]

Greetings everyone, I'd love to hear your opinions on this. (There is a TL;DR with just the questions for you, and no explanation of what's going on with layering and it's downsides/plus points)

According to the recent dev interviews, the new big scale sharding tech called "Layering" will most likely find it's way into classic to prevent massive queues (which was what sharding was created for initially) as massive amounts of people enter the World of Warcraft. Layering will assist with making that a smooth process, but not entirely fix because there will still be queues regardless. I linked below to the points in their respective interviews where they talk about this new tech, if you wanna see for yourself.

So what could go wrong?

As the idea of implementing sharding first came to light, it was said by the Devs that it would stay in for just the launch onslaught to prevent inaccessibility to the game because of queues, and gameplay issues that happen with massive amounts of people (mob tagging etc). However, as of the most recent news from the Team, the time they want Layering in has further increased to weeks, potentially months (as stated in the press interview) depending on at what point during Phase 1 (the very launch period of Classic) they feel comfortable taking it out, and if not during then, at the very latest the launch of "phase 2" (which includes world bosses), at which point Ion promised it would be gone.

That means, the only guarantee we currently have is that it will be gone by the start of Phase 2, which we have no idea when exactly that will actually end up being (approximately several weeks/months, as stated in the interviews).

Don't get me wrong, i really want to trust Blizzard on handling this special period with great care, and i know they are trying, but i've seen, heard and experienced enough with them to know that they might end up taking much more time than most people think right now with leaving this tech in, but being in the super hype mode this potentially big issue that may alter players experience by a lot when the game is actually out may be overlooked.
I hope it won't be such a big problem, but i've got a bad feeling and would love to be proven wrong, because i'm concerned that the effects layering has, such as (but not limited to):

• it's not one world, it's Azeroth 1, Azeroth 2, .. and people will poof out if grouped up from an alternate world. World immersion is clearly affected, from day 1 (if you know about layering, or if you don't know, you'll see when they poof out, or you do) you know it's not the "real" Azeroth, and you can group into an alternate Azeroth at will

• community feeling (playerbase split into different layers from the get go, and meeting up potentially way later even though they are on the same realm after they've formed and grown their own communities already, instead of "growing" up together)

• PvP aspect (escaping ganks, failing to attack enemy armies because of layering, each layer having different PvP reputations and dueling scene etc)

• the economy (guilds already making preperations to farm the shit out of precious resources by exploiting the system, .. the list goes on)

Layering is indeed an improvement over sharding when it comes to technical performance and ensuring gameplay ease, and it's more appropriate to Classic, but at what cost? The Devs have stated they know Classic is about the community feeling first and foremost. Yet it would appear that their current priority is shifted to what Layering provides, by focusing strongly straight from the launch of classic on technical performance and gameplay quality, using a tech that may likely stay in place for a significant amount of time, enough to damage the classic right in its core values.
This may change the experience to a point where it is not just very temporarily modernized to deal with launch difficulties on eachothers end, but long enough to become a straight up different game for the first timespan of it's life, which will be very strongly remembered as it is very special, and it's gonna have layering in there in that memory. Looking at it from a very rational standpoint, layering makes great sense. However there's a lot of emotional experiences and attachements when it comes to early WoW for a very good reason, because it is undeniable that the game is made so great by it's players, and anything that could offset the community aspect and the immersion in what seems like an authentic alternate world you/your character can be in, with very real people right in there, is damaging the game in that aspect.

TL;DR: What do you think? How long do you see them leaving Layering in, and do you think it might affect the community, World feeling and gameplay (pvp, economy, leveling etc) the longer it stays?

Or do you think it won't create large enough issues and differences to original wow, and be mostly a positive experience, regardless of how long it's left in there, even if it's potentially months in the worst case?

Please tell me i'm full of shit and completely off, and that i can also just hype along, because i really want to, but this is just a thorn in my eye i can't ignore and it makes me worried that classic might do less well because of this. (Also, please note i appreciate the classic teams clear passion a lot, and i wanna see them succeed, which is why i made this post to raise potential issues that could get adressed while there is still enough time)



Here's the parts i referenced of the Interview that had the Devs talking about sharding/layering, in case you don't know what it is or what they said about it:

https://youtu.be/jYuUD0o-Nz8?t=315 (Ion Hazzikostas explains sharding/layering, and mentions how it will be used for several weeks or until P2)
https://youtu.be/O3b423uqrdo?t=241 (Omar Gonzalez goes into sharding, and how grouping up will poof you out the world if the one inviting is on a different layer)
https://youtu.be/O3b423uqrdo?t=645 (Omar Gonzalez talking about time spans for phases)
https://youtu.be/DdZH3UAwUZo?t=574 (Ion talks about time spans for phases potentially lasting months)
https://youtu.be/UHMd0KC3eTY?t=244 (Brian Birmingham, Patrick Dawson explain their choice for using sharding/layering, and give time estimates for how long they intend to use it, again 3-4 "however many weeks after we feel we hit that mark")
https://youtu.be/UHMd0KC3eTY?t=476 (Patrick Dawson talks about their priority being performance > gameplay, and how they decided to focus on gameplay quality for the launch by using layering)
https://youtu.be/UHMd0KC3eTY?t=519 (Patrick Dawson and Brian Birmingham explain how sharding originated as tool to combat queues, how it's a tradeoff of either sharding/layering or queues, how there will be queues, Layerings ability to phase out players/armies during it's very early months (!), server population, name reservation)


__________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________

My Opinion:


I really hope they will reconsider how lenient they are with leaving Layering in in Classic, because to use this tech out of all their tricks as the tool that essentially goes against the very premise of WoW in the first place (it being a living, breathing immersive world with it's unique inhabitants, i mean it even has a name. It's not Azeroth 1, and Azeroth 2 for a reason right?) is in my eyes a giant compromise and risk that may prevent technical difficulties, and will improve the gameplay experience (which, although enjoyable is not the priority in classic, it's the community and it's authenticity in the World of Azeroth it's on, aka the server and it's community) but cause much more damage in the areas that the game is all about.
This could be detrimental, as all the difficulties that come with it will be remembered very well because the launch and starting period of classic will be a very special time, especially for those who may be new and get completely enchanted by it, as i have many years ago when i started in TBC. (which also had no layering/sharding at all, and was aside from obvious raids and so on just as heavy community/immersive based as classic is according to everyone i've heard talk about it).

I want others to be able to have that experience of no layering/sharding too. I think classic is a very emotional sort of game, because the greatest memories almost always seem to be about moments with other players in the game, just as mine from TBC, and the game itself is just a platform that makes it seem effortless to do accomplish all sorts of feats and silly stuff with random people who become your friends before you know it. The more you tinker with that very delicate design catering to that emotional experience, by going in with the sharding/layering hammer to improve tech/gameplay quality, the more you'll change the game the way i and i know many others got attached to it so much up until this day and long ass forum post.

Now, if they only go for this technology for the first days, the effects will be much much less detrimental, to a point where if they don't find a solution that is more authentically WoW that doesn't burn the whole Blizzard HQ and several players hair during launch, i'd take the compromise and only cry a little inside personally. But any more than that.. seems like a very risky and harmful idea for classic WoW. I hope it will all go well for Blizzard and the players. I hope my post can contribute to that happening, and make classic players aware of layering, whatever way it goes.

Thanks for reading.

I believe they said the intent is when you log in and are say on Azeroth 1- for your play sessions you will remain on Azeroth 1, regardless of doing an instance, PVP, or what have you.

I dont think you will see people running away from you and using some cheap trick to phase to another area...this isnt like Mt Hyjal PVP ganking haha

[Eosia]

Private servers have stable servers with 20k people online at any given time and I never paid anything. Your argument is lazy and completely non sensical lol

Maybe because Blizzard is anticipating more than 20k? Legion must have been your first WoW experience because you obviously do not remember WoD where Blizzard got taken by surprise when 5 million people or so came back for Launch and completely destabilized the servers.

Yopur arguement is selfish and reeks of entitlement the likes of which a Lysol factory cannot dispel.

[tikcol]

Maybe because Blizzard is anticipating more than 20k? Legion must have been your first WoW experience because you obviously do not remember WoD where Blizzard got taken by surprise when 5 million people or so came back for Launch and completely destabilized the servers.

Yopur arguement is selfish and reeks of entitlement the likes of which a Lysol factory cannot dispel.

Blizzard servers with pop cap of more than 20k per server? Retail vanilla had a 2.5k pop cap for the most part, you're insane lol

[oplawlz]

You have two options:

1. Deal with sharding for 1 month to ensure a stable launch until the active player count forms the normal sinusoidal curve
2. Have a shit launch with lots of lag.

There really isnt that much to be said.

This is flatly incorrect. Lag only happens when server admins allows servers to go over capacity. The correct alternative to sharding is log in queues.

[lollerlaban]

Private servers have stable servers with 20k people online at any given time and I never paid anything. Your argument is lazy and completely non sensical lol

Yeah because Nost having 2k MS delay and several seconds delay on looting during their peak hours was "Stable" servers, am i right? And let's not talk about their 1 hour rollbacks in their prime time

[tikcol]

Yeah because Nost having 2k MS delay and several seconds delay on looting during their peak hours was "Stable" servers, am i right? And let's not talk about their 1 hour rollbacks in their prime time

That happened occasionally. Lightshope/northdale even at launch had and have almost flawless ping. It's always funny watching people moving goal posts every post, defending Blizzard and then admitting you can't expect Blizzard to do better than a few neckbeards on their caves running servers as a hobby

[Paulosio]

If layering is a huge problem there is a very easy way for it not to be an issue. Wait till the initial mad rush has died down and layering has been turned off and then play as normal with no layering... That's what i'm likely to do.

[Eosia]

Blizzard servers with pop cap of more than 20k per server? Retail vanilla had a 2.5k pop cap for the most part, you're insane lol

Keyword there.... HAD. You do know that hardware has advanced over the years, right? You would think that a system running two Opteron 275 CPUs (Dual Core), running on 8GB of RAM (4x 512MB and 2x 2GB), and an SCSI Ultra-320 storage system would have some limitations. Most players today have desktop PCs with hardware that blows the original Vanilla Hardware out of the water with its 8GB of RAM, 2x Dual Core Opteron CPUs, 320MB/sec SCSI Interface with a whopping 600GB max internal storage.

And these blades were probably upgraded before being retired during Wrath.

[tikcol]

Keyword there.... HAD. You do know that hardware has advanced over the years, right? You would think that a system running two Opteron 275 CPUs (Dual Core), running on 8GB of RAM (4x 512MB and 2x 2GB), and an SCSI Ultra-320 storage system would have some limitations. Most players today have desktop PCs with hardware that blows the original Vanilla Hardware out of the water with its 8GB of RAM, 2x Dual Core Opteron CPUs, 320MB/sec SCSI Interface with a whopping 600GB max internal storage.

And these blades were probably upgraded before being retired during Wrath.

Except you know.. Blizzard already confirmed they won't deviate a lot from the 2.5k pop cap they had. If you had googled that too you would look just a little less foolish

[lollerlaban]

That happened occasionally. Lightshope/northdale even at launch had and have almost flawless ping. It's always funny watching people moving goal posts every post, defending Blizzard and then admitting you can't expect Blizzard to do better than a few neckbeards on their caves running servers as a hobby

Happened every day at peak hours, stop making a fool of yourself.

[Vynestra]

So instead you want too many servers that end up all dead, or you want the same servers that have long queues, tons of lag, and a completely unplayable experience that you will 110% complain about endlessly?

Got it.

[tikcol]

Happened every day at peak hours, stop making a fool of yourself.

Your connection sucks monkey balls that's what

[Triceron]

Oh no. Waiting 20 min for a 100 hour queue? Some lag in a mmo ? Absolutely not acceptable! We must take a fat dump on the entire idea of classic and put one the greatest cancers in wow history back in the game so a few fragile flowers don't have a mental breakdown for waiting a few min in a queue.

With that much patience, I'm sure you will be fine waiting a month or two until Layering is removed. The fragile flowers might not be able to handle that, but a big boy like you should be fine.

[Nerevar]

They already said how long the layering will last. Probs a month or so, and that's it. Did you really need a thread with a wall of post just for that?

[The Stormbringer]

They already said how long the layering will last. Probs a month or so, and that's it. Did you really need a thread with a wall of post just for that?

Yes, that early game experience in limited areas will DESTROY the entire experience!!!!1one

[Eosia]

Except you know.. Blizzard already confirmed they won't deviate a lot from the 2.5k pop cap they had. If you had googled that too you would look just a little less foolish

Like how about when two weeks ago WoW's Game Director said that Blizzard is "aiming at launch for much higher concurrency caps on our individual servers than what was possible" (source)

[willemh]

So instead you want too many servers that end up all dead, or you want the same servers that have long queues, tons of lag, and a completely unplayable experience that you will 110% complain about endlessly?

Got it.

Was this ever an issue on private servers?